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Steve Job's Z8 sold at auction

To be auctioned at Sothebys in New York on December 6th. Their ad is below:

Steve Jobs' 2000 BMW Z8:
A Car as Innovative as Its Owner

Imagine you’re a tech titan in the year 2000. You’ve just returned to the company you helped create. Change is the only constant. And thanks to your exacting, innovative vision, you’re about to revolutionize the way people communicate—again.

What do you do when it’s time to buy a new car?

Steve Jobs, Apple’s visionary co-founder, reportedly found himself taking advice from Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, who convinced Jobs the BMW Z8 was the paragon of modern automotive engineering and reflective of his own products and psyche.

This is that Z8—and it’ll be offered without reserve at RM Sotheby’s ICONS this 6 Decemeber in New York.

A pop-culture symbol in its own right, the Z8 was the Bond car of its time, and Jobs ordered his Z8 in the style of his understated and minimalist products and stereotypical dress: Titanium paint over Black leather. He held on to the Z8 for nearly three years, unlike the many other vehicles he owned for less than six months at a time.

Offered with a plethora of important accessories, including its proper hardtop and hardtop stand, car cover, owner’s and service manuals, two keys, and navigation CDs, the Z8 also comes with its BMW-branded Motorola cell phone—a technological feature Jobs is known to have hated, which may have been the impetus behind his drive to revolutionize the mobile phone.

Without knowing the mileage or condition, the estimate of $300k-$400k is about double what you might expect to get for a similar car without the celebrity association. Seems kind of optimistic, but then again, I heard Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona recently sold for $17 million, so anything is possible!

Seems like this is good, high profile press for the z8. Shouldn’t this help values? Do these celebrity sale prices help all the other prices rise up? Seems it should have some effect on overall market value.

It can't hurt for sure, everything that underwrites the legend of the Z8 adds to its desirability!

Hi Guys,I'm excited about the auction and I really appreciate the help some of our members have given me in the past. Certainly, I don't think the auction will hurt Z8 values and the amount of publicity the car's received should only help our cars desirability. As for the selling price of the Z8 in NYC, even very knowledgeable people have told me they could see a wide range of final selling price for the car. That does range from "it's a nice Z8 owned by a non car guy celeb" to "Jobs is more famous and relevant than Newman, a Z8 is more desirable than a Rolex and you get Jobs mobile phone". Obviously I hope bidders see the latter logic as superior to the former.Either way, it should be exciting!